In multiple access wireless communications systems it is advantageous for wireless terminals currently using a base station attachment point to be able to communicate control information, e.g., control information reports, to that base station attachment point. The base station can utilize received control information reports to make intelligent decisions in terms of controlling operations of the wireless terminal, responding to the wireless terminal's traffic channel requests, and balancing between the plurality of wireless terminals currently competing for available resources. The efficient use of air link resources to convey control information is an important consideration in wireless system design as the control channel allocation represents resources devoted to overhead which could have otherwise been utilized for communicating traffic channel data.
In multiple access wireless communication systems there has been an increasing demand for concurrent users as the available services offered expands and the number of subscribers to service providers continues to grow. In view of the above, methods and apparatus that efficiently support increased numbers of concurrent users would be beneficial.
It would be advantageous if methods and apparatus were directed to achieving a balance between control channel resources and user data resources. A wireless terminal typically may have different requirements at different times, e.g., as a function of the type of application in uses, the number of concurrent applications in use, the user data rate needed, the latency requirements, etc. Methods and apparatus that allow a wireless terminal to operate in different modes of operation in which the wireless terminal receives different amounts of uplink control channel air link resources at different times would be beneficial. It would also be beneficial if control channel communications, e.g., via a dedicated uplink control channel segment, were tailored to facilitate different modes of control channel operation. For example, if a wireless terminal was currently allocated a relatively lower level of dedicated control channel segments it might be desirable to use a coding and modulation scheme for a dedicated control channel segment which sacrificed some redundancy to achieve the benefit of a higher control information bit throughput.
If one communicates a block of information bits over a single segment using a single tone and the system interference level on the tone happens to be high, the information may be lost. Methods and apparatus such as tone hopping would be beneficial in improving diversity and increasing the likelihood that the information bits of a segment be successfully communicated. It would be advantageous if tone hopping was coordinated with the coding and modulation method utilized such that corruption of one tone did not significantly impact successful recovery.